Christian Zeuch is a new creator at the DMs Guild who has been hitting the ground running, releasing a ton of fantastic additions to the various 5e hardcover releases, from encounter packs to map packs.
Christian has also released a few of his own adventures. The Great Trial is one of his adventures and it’s a love letter to some of D&D’s most iconic dungeons. It certainly takes inspiration from adventures like Tomb of Horrors, but it has its own identity and many unique mechanics.
I love dungeon crawling and my friends jump at the chance to play a mid-to-high level adventure. Needless to say, The Great Trial was the perfect one to play as a one-shot at my table. We had a ton of fun with the game and played just under five engrossing sessions.
It’s a flexible module that can work as a standalone one-shot or easily be incorporated into an ongoing campaign. It’s flexible enough to be split up into layers. This, plus the fantastic map, makes it a great tool and inspiration for any DM’s collection.
Let me tell you more about this fantastic dungeon crawl and convince you to add it to your DMs Guild holiday wish list.
Formatting and editing
The format is standard 5e, the PDF is searchable, and the table of contents includes links to each page, making it easy to navigate during game night. Overall, a solid read.
However, this module needs further editing; many sections are wordy and difficult to read, requiring several reads to fully understand.
Boxed text also suffered from this issue, and often had difficulty explaining the explanation to the party – the party wasn’t punished in-game, but they had to re-read or prepare a summary to explain the scene.
Background information
The Grand Trials are a series of challenges created by the elven wizard Enor Greenwith. Enor was a master of magic and engineering, and decided to put his tools to the test and create his masterpiece: The Grand Trials.
The Great Hall of Trials is littered with deadly traps, vicious monsters, and exhausting puzzles. Adventurers will need all of their skill and wits to overcome the challenges Enor sets forth.
But the dungeon isn’t finished yet. Now Aenor needs to test it. To do that, he found a capable QA team: the party.
The adventure does provide some plot hints to steer the party in Enor’s direction, though they wouldn’t be too hard to come up with on your own. This is by no means a lore-heavy adventure.
In fact, that’s one of the strengths of this module – it can be adapted to any campaign.
map
As someone who’s played virtual TTRPGs for years, I’m always excited when a DMs Guild module includes a virtual map or battlemap – it’s easier to just pop the map into Roll20 and do a bit of editing than it is to pull each map out of the PDF and wonder if it looks good.
The Grand Trial contains 13 unique maps, which is already a pretty impressive number.
However, almost all maps include at least a gridless version of the map, overworld maps also include DM and player versions, and several maps include maps with lights in place.
All of the maps look great. So great in fact that I thought I’d give a dungeon draft a try.
Running the module
Each level of The Grand Trial is essentially a different dungeon.
1st floor: A classic dungeon crawl with lots of traps 2nd floor: A skill challenge to get out of the maze 3rd floor: A hex crawl
This variety makes for a unique dungeon crawling experience, but it does require the DM to know how to run several different types of scenarios, and thankfully the module has ample instructions on which floors to run.
If you’re playing “The Great Trial” as a one-shot, it’s also worth noting that there is very little social interaction within the dungeons – the adventure is heavily focused on combat and exploration, so creating a Faith-type character puts you at a major disadvantage.
Keep in mind, too, that food and water supplies are limited until the party reaches the open-world hexcrawl. Both of the first two floors are packed with dangerous creatures and traps, creating a sense of tension for the party.
Encounter Balance
Overall, the combat was great, especially the first two floors, which were phenomenal in terms of combat design and balance – there were a lot of tough fights on these floors, but they always felt fair.
This was impressive, as these floors are riddled with deadly traps – the party frequently ran low on resources but had to push forward lest they starve to death – but never once did it feel like the party was in any danger of annihilation.
The descriptions of each important battle also included a strategy section, which was a welcome addition even for those who had piloted many of these creatures before, giving insight into the intended design process and aiding in decision-making during the session.
I would love to see more modules with simple strategy explanations like this for key battles.
Multiple ways to solve the problem
Many of the combats in this module had alternative solutions. These often required creative thinking, but benefited the player by lowering the difficulty of the encounter. Given that time is pressing and food and water are scarce, this is a huge boon for the party.
One example is a fight with an Aboleth, which is guarding what appears to be a slime-covered egg from the party – it makes sense that the creature would protect its babies – but when the party removes the slime coating, it is revealed that the egg is actually a giant sapphire.
Doing so will make the aboleth believe that Enor has tricked them, which will cause the aboleth to cease attacking and leave the party, shifting their focus to getting revenge the next time Enor visits their realm.
I thought these alternative solutions were really great – they offer alternative routes to victory while also encouraging creative thinking – but the fight is entirely viable even without these creative solutions.
1st floor: Entry level
This was by far my group’s favorite level of the adventure. It was a classic dungeon crawl that took a lot of inspiration from Tomb of Horrors.
There were tough battles, desperate struggles, and nasty traps. It was awesome.
The traps are definitely the highlight of this level – they can be deadly, especially if the group chooses to play by the DMG’s recommended wounding rules – but they can also be inventive – each one is unique, with different mechanisms that will keep the party on their toes.
But even the most careful parties are likely to fall into these deadly traps.
The overall goal of this level is simple: get the key to open the door, then get the three gem McGuffins to open the door to the next floor, all the while having to avoid traps and defeat various enemies.
2nd floor: Labyrinth level
Initially, we envisioned the maze level as a typical game where you navigate winding maze corridors, and while thematically this is true, gameplay-wise it’s a unique approach to navigating a maze.
The maze acts as a skill challenge, the party must succeed on a total of 10 skill checks (Perception, Insight, Investigation, or History) in order to reach the end of the maze.
Failure will result in either a trap, a dead end, a random encounter, or an illusory wall that will give the party a free success when interacted with. The traps are pretty dangerous. The encounters, on the other hand, felt a bit too easy.
After two or three skill checks, the party may be taken to a room outside the labyrinth. The first set will take them to one of two puzzle rooms. Solving the puzzle will disable one of the Minotaur’s traits or abilities, making the fight against this mini-boss easier.
With five successes, they battle the Minotar, a minotaur-inspired metal construct. This was my favorite encounter. I really enjoyed piloting the creature, but also how completing optional puzzles weakened the Minotar, giving the party a sense of progress.
After ten checks, the party reaches the end of the labyrinth, where they fight yet another metal structure, this time inspired by a wyvern. This was a deadly battle, especially considering all the damage the party had taken from the various encounters and traps while progressing through the labyrinth.
Overall, this is a great interpretation of a traditional maze and I will definitely be stealing this the next time I want to add a maze or labyrinth to my adventure. If anything, I would have liked to play more with this level. It felt like it went by a little too quickly, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted.
3rd floor: “Halaster” level
Once the party escapes the maze, they climb a flight of stairs leading down into a cave – there is literally a light at the end of the tunnel – are they finally free of the terrifying and dangerous dungeon?
No! They’ve been dropped (without their knowledge) into the third and final level of The Great Trial! They must survive a hellish landscape filled with dinosaurs, traversing different biomes, each with their own challenges.
Each biome has its own list of random encounters, as well as some additional environmental effects: for example, food is plentiful and easy to obtain in hills, while jungles are home to dangerous creatures that make finding food more difficult.
There are also plenty of suggested unique encounters the party can undertake as they traverse the various areas.
Ruins
The goal of this level is to neutralize the pillars of light emanating from three ruins spread across the map. Each ruin acts as a small mini-dungeon with its own challenges. Once the pillars of light are neutralized, the party can leave this floor by returning to the original cave they arrived in.
Each of the three sites presented different challenges.
Mountain Ruins: A tower-climbing skill challenge Lake Ruins: Fight your way through a gauntlet of traps and complete a mystery puzzle Island Ruins: Fight an enraged zombie monkey
The mountain and lake ruins were solid, the lake ruins difficulty was particularly fun and provided a real challenge for the party.
But the island ruins need a bit more difficulty – angry zombie monkeys can easily overpower a crowd at your party and blow them to smithereens – I think you’d need a legendary action or a bunch of minions to get the advantage.
Final Thoughts on the Great Trial
All in all, we had a lot of fun playing this module over the four and a half weeks it took to escape the vile dungeons of Aenor Gleenwith.
The Grand Trial doesn’t require a lot of background information or story to run, making it a perfect adventure to incorporate into a multi-week campaign – plus, it’s modular enough that you could run a single floor as a one-off dungeon if you wanted.
At just under $7, The Great Trial is well worth the price, with at least five sessions’ worth of content, plus a ton of well-made maps that you can populate right into your VTT of choice.
